The Regrets Of The Brokenhearted
by Broadwaylover5300
Summary: Rolfe reflects on how he treated Liesl and what he would have done differently. If you had to assign a pairing to it, I guess you might say Rolfe/Liesl, but it's really just a Rolfe-centric one-shot.


**A/N No. 1: The lyrics that open and close this one-shot are from Bob Dylan's beautiful song "I Threw It All Away," which gave me the inspiration to write this story. I don't own the lyrics; that would be Mr. Dylan himself.**

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_I once held her in my arms.  
She said she would always stay.  
But I was cruel;  
I treated her like a fool;  
I threw it all away…_

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It had been a long time since Rolfe had been to this part of Salzburg; practically the only time he had come out to this area was to deliver a telegram to Georg Von Trapp, and since they had fled the country, the need to deliver anything to this part of the city had died down. It had died down, that was, until today, when Rolfe had been handed a telegram by his dispatcher and had been told to deliver it to Herr Zeller, who had recently moved back into the area after having left for a while.

Rolfe chuckled coldly to himself as he remembered that there had once been a time when he had actually looked forward to coming to this part of Salzburg. That, of course, had been back when the Von Trapps had still been living here, and, more specifically, back when he and Liesl had still been in love with each other.

The thought of Liesl sent a spike of pain through Rolfe's heart. There had been a time when he had almost convinced himself that he was over her, that what he had felt for her was nothing more than a fling, something that he had involved himself in when he was younger but was now something too childish for him to bother with now. This had been the state of mind he had been in when he had told Liesl off the afternoon she and her siblings had been preparing for the Salzburg Music Festival.

At the time, Rolfe had been able to rationalize his actions; after all, Liesl's father was an anti-Nazi radical, which meant that Lisel was the same way. At the time, Rolfe had felt confident that being on Hitler's side would open up a world of opportunities for him, and that being associated with a child like Liesl Von Trapp would do nothing but hold him back.

That façade of pride and bitterness had begun to crumble away almost immediately, however, when Georg had confronted Rolfe in the Abbey's cemetery. Of course, Liesl was there, too, but she hadn't had nearly as strong an effect as the former sea captain. That night, Captain Von Trapp had said something that had stuck with Rolfe ever since:

"You'll never be one of them."

Rolfe had thought he could prove the Captain wrong by alerting his fellow Nazi troops to the family's presence in the abbey, and that had actually appeased his feelings for a while. However, as the years came and went, Liesl's father's comment had come back to haunt him many times.

The feeling that had an even stronger hold on Rolfe, however, was remorse over the way he had treated Liesl. Liesl had loved Rolfe in a way that Rolfe was convinced had been more than a fluffy teenage way. He couldn't help but think that, had he just acted with a little more kindness toward Liesl, perhaps she would have been willing to help him out of the morass that he was now finding the Nazi Party to be.

Rolfe found his mind wandering, as it often did, to what his life might had been like had he accepted Captain Von Trapp's invitation that night in the cemetery and run away with his family. He and Liesl might have been married by this time; right now, they might have been living in a cozy house somewhere in a quiet part of the Alps, with him harvesting crops while she helped him. Maybe they might even have had children by this time, a small group of boys and girls that Rolfe and Liesl could raise to be honest, moral people who believed in working hard and in doing what was right.

Of course, Rolfe had long missed his chance to ever have such a life, and such an opportunity would never come again. He felt a lump rise in his throat and tears well up in his eyes as he realized that a beautiful girl like Liesl had probably long ago found another man, one who was more deserving than he, one who would never treat Liesl as cruelly as he had. Rolfe knew that he should be happy that Liesl had probably found such a man, and he did, but that happiness also came with a pervasive sense of regret that he had thrown away the chance to be that lucky man.

The tears began to flow as Rolfe bicycled past the now-abandoned Von Trapp villa, now with ivy creeping up the walls and growing out of the fountain, and weeds choking the driveway that surrounded the fountain. Rolfe put on the brakes and walked his bike back to the villa's rusty front gate. He stared at the forlorn-looking house for a while. He wiped tears from his eyes and face with the back of his hand.

After a few moments, Rolfe straddled his bike and pedaled toward Herr Zeller's home. He took a second, however, to look back at the Von Trapp villa as it receded into the background. As he watched the house disappear, he silently promised himself that, if the chance to ever be loved ever came to him again, he would cherish it and not pass it up, as he had with his beautiful Liesl.

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_Love is all there is, it makes the world go around  
Love and only love it can't be denied  
No matter what you think about it  
You just won't be able to do without it  
Take a tip from one who's tried…_

_So if you find someone that gives you all of her love_  
_Take it to your heart, don't let it stray_  
_For one thing that's certain_  
_You will surely be a-hurtin'_  
_If you throw it all away..._

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**A/N No. 2: Well, it's not much, but hopefully you enjoyed it! I'm treating Rolfe in a far different way in my other SOM fanfic, so it was nice to write this and represent him in a more tender way. Like I said, I hope you enjoy it!**


End file.
